Flawed perceptions

Prakash Jha flanked by Amitabh Bachchan and Deepika Padukone at a press conference to promote their film "Aarakshan", in Bangalore on August 1. - SHAILENDRA BHOJAK/PTI

The way in which the director Prakash Jha highlights certain social issues makes his film Aarakshan controversial.

A NEARLY two-and-a-half-hour Hindi film made by the director Prakash Jha known for his critically acclaimed works such as Damul, Parinati, Mrityudand, Apaharan, Gangajal and Rajneeti ran into trouble, not with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) but with the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) and some State governments for its allegedly insensitive portrayal of Dalits. Titled Aarakshan, loosely translated as reservation, the film, with Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Manoj Bajpai and Deepika Padukone in the lead roles, cleverly juxtaposes the need for reservation in educational institutions and the need for a clampdown on commercialised educational institutions.

The film was vetted by the CBFC and its new Chairperson, Leela Samson, who justifiably could not understand the brouhaha over the film as it had been cleared by a board that now has nine more members, including members of the Dalit community. The NCSC objected to some dialogues that it had been told denigrated Dalits and were not countered properly by the lead protagonist, Bachchan.

Even as NCSC Chairperson P.L. Punia, a Lok Sabha member from Barabanki, insisted that the NCSC be shown the film and that the CBFC delete any parts the NCSC found objectionable, the governments of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh banned the screening of the film on August 12, the date of its release. The Government of Uttar Pradesh banned the release of the film in the State for two months, stating that it would create a law and order problem. Punjab followed suit on similar grounds on the basis that it had the largest S.C. population in the country in terms of percentage of the population. But it, along with Andhra Pradesh, revoked the ban a few days later. The film has not been released in Uttar Pradesh.

The film is unique in that it addresses these issues, in as head-on a manner as possible. However, the problem with it is that the director and the scriptwriter (Anjum Rajabali, who is also a member of the CBFC) rely on the idea that individual messiahs, in this case Bachchan, can deliver social justice. That democratically elected governments have a larger responsibility towards guaranteeing education for all, more so when there already are deep economic and social divisions among the people, does not emerge from the narrative. Neither the director nor the scriptwriter seems to imply that more opportunities and jobs have to be created or that more investment in education by the government is needed in order to get rid of the multiple systems of access prevalent in the country at present. Apart from showing a corrupt education Minister who runs his own private colleges, a trend that is not far from reality, Jha could have delved a little deeper into the two Indias that his protagonist talks about by showing how the neglect of education in the public sector has been deliberate and pushed by a certain kind of political thinking, coinciding with the neoliberal agenda of mainstream political parties.

The story is about a principal, played by Bachchan, of a private college run by a trust that has certain opportunistic characters who are willing to barter away the lofty ideals of the institution in order to make more money. The principal is a person who believes in equal access to education; he does not discriminate against anyone but does not push actively for affirmative action either. He holds remedial classes, free of charge, for students who presumably cannot afford expensive tuitions and who belong to the weaker and socially backward sections of society.

Interestingly, the film opens with a heavily caricatured portrayal of interviewers (all upper caste and upper class) who are casteist and scoff openly at a prospective candidate the viewer learns soon enough is a Dalit. The opening is verbose and preachy as Saif Ali Khan delivers a salvo of moralising on social justice to the panel and leaves without getting a job. The confrontations between a privileged youth of the college, played by Prateik Babbar, and Saif Ali Khan on the issues of merit and hard work are gripping. In any debate on reservation, those against it use the argument of merit and hard work. Why don't you work hard and come up like everyone else, says the privileged youngster, and this is countered by a powerful dialogue delivered by Saif, who, referring to his character's community, says that all that we've known and done is work hard all our lives... we've tilled your land, grazed your cows and even lifted your night soil.

What begins as a bold film slowly loses its sharpness as the focus shifts to the might of that one honest man, the principal of the college. The problem with Jha and some of his films, such as Gangajal or Apaharan, is that he succumbs to the solo-messiah formula, oft repeated in Indian cinema, without addressing the more systemic and structural issues behind the very tendencies that he sets out to attack in his films.

Jha is known for his intelligent and sensitive approach to social issues as evinced in films such as Damul, which was about bonded labour; Parinati, on human greed and helplessness (based on the famous Rajasthani writer Vijaydan Detha's short story); and Mrityudand, which gave Indian cinema one of its strongest female characters through Madhuri Dixit and which trod boldly into the realm of forbidden inter-caste liaisons and exposed the hypocrisy of patriarchy and religious custodians.

Rajneeti is nothing in comparison with his earlier works. Even though it has a star cast, it is a meaningless caricature of politics and politicians. It did well in the box office, pandering as it did to the apolitical character of the middle classes.

But Aarakshan could have scored more substantively had it also addressed the systemic factors that make affirmative action so necessary today in a country like India. Jha could have, with a little bit of research, dug out the figures of the various reserved posts that are lying vacant because of the lack of push from below and the high drop-out rates of children from socially and economically backward communities. These and other indicators only strengthen the conviction that affirmative action needs to be pushed even more vigorously with steps such as land reforms, the importance of which Jha should be able to understand as his antecedents are in Bihar and Jharkhand.

With a neither here nor there approach, Aarakshan was bound to attract controversy one way or the other. At a press conference in Mumbai a day before the release, Jha apparently told reporters that reservation was not a necessity but a constitutional truth and that film-makers had been very careful about how they depicted it. He also clarified that his film was not about reservation alone but about the commercialisation of education. He did not explain how the two things were related.

Punia told Frontline that his office had no intention of functioning like a policeman. We conveyed the sensitivities of the Dalit community to them [the CBFC]. We stand by what we have done, he said, adding that a lot of support had come in from the States. He added that Jha had agreed to omit those sections the NCSC found objectionable. He felt that the film was about commercialisation of education and not about reservation at all and wondered whether the producer had deliberately created a pro- and anti-reservation theme in the film.

Regarding the dialogues the NCSC found objectionable, he said: I can understand if a villain is making statements against reservation, but if it is made by some responsible sections in society, like a businessman, for instance, and if it is left undisputed properly, then there is a problem. Punia was referring to derisive comments made by affluent parents in the film who tell Bachchan's character that they felt uncomfortable seeing their children sit along with poorer students who smelt bad. The script provides a response here for the protagonist who refuses to do so but without explaining why he felt that way.

Punia also felt that it was irresponsible of the CBFC to have issued the certificate without showing the film to the NCSC despite a request from the latter. He said: We made a request much before the release of the film. I am responsible and mandated to look into the interests of the S.C. community. What crime have I committed by asking the censor board to show the film to the NCSC?

The film had become controversial much before the NCSC's intervention. First, a section representing Dalits in Maharashtra protested on the grounds that the film was anti-reservation. Then a section in Madhya Pradesh objected to the scion of a nawab playing the role of a Dalit, and then the Lucknow administration declined permission for an interactive talk show with the makers of the film. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry, on the other hand, defended the CBFC's decision, while the Congress appealed to everyone to observe restraint, whatever that meant.

Interestingly, the Punjab government, which had banned the film initially, appointed a committee to view the film and lifted the ban, saying that the overall message of the film was positive and that it had depicted the educational backwardness of Dalits and reflected on the bane of the commercialisation of education.

Jha is an accomplished film-maker, winner of several national awards, and is not known to choose a subject on a whim. The treatment of the issues that he picks up as leit motifs sometimes can be problematic. He has been conscious of the fact that he has to show a multiple-layered India, and it goes to his credit that he introduced the concept of two Indias in cinema, at least, in recent times. His dialogues are very powerful, often delivered in the colloquial and true to the dialect of the regions his films have broadly represented, that is, the Hindi belt. The deeply feudal nature of relationships, including interpersonal ones, is something that almost all his films bring out. He explores this often through his female protagonists, which makes it interesting.

Memorable song

The most memorable song in Aarakshan there are not too many songs, which is a noteworthy dimension to the film is Mauka, which means opportunity. Written by Prasoon Joshi, it is a powerful song. The lines Jiska hai balla, aur ball jiski, uske hi niyam, aur har baat uski, ho yeh khel kab tak chalaoge bolo, ummeed ka ek stadium to kholo (the one who owns the ball and the bat makes the rules of the game. How long are you going to conduct the game like this; open a stadium of hope) and Uttarne to do, phir maidan dekhna, ho phadphadate huye armaan dekhna: barabar ki line kheecho zara, himmat badi ya bhagwaan dekhna (give us a chance to enter the competition, then you will see how the field changes; at least draw an equal line of opportunity and then watch what happens) are among the many powerful moments and lines in the film.

In all likelihood the film will do well despite the controversy as it has generated a lot of curiosity.